At the risk of blogging too much about sports franchises, I have to make reference to this blog post by Dave Zirin in the New Yorker Magazine. It is especially pertinent because soccer fans and administrators in Europe have expressed the worry that there's a need to limit the ability of wealthy individuals from providing support to teams because it distorts the playing field. The story shows that the Green Bay Packers are a different outfit from other franchises in the NFL because they are owned by their fans. As a result, they operate entirely as a non profit entity and have had an decent record in reaching the Super Bowl finals.
My view is that like other businesses, running a sports franchise is just as difficult and perhaps more so because there's an emotionally engaged fan base. Still, as a couple of top soccer clubs in Germany have proved, it is possible to operate a successful sports franchise through a business model that is different from what is conventional. It is also clear that a Franchise whose ownership is dispersed among 200,000 fans can still be run professionally and the choice of not taking in profits is one that many fans could take. Equally important that for the Green Bay Packers, the business model has proved stable for more than seven decades.
Logo from: http://www.packers.com/
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